This season takes us back to the volatile period of the late 70's/early 80's and throws us firmly over the Wall into the Soviet racing scene.Formula Easter was the premier single seater class in the USSR, a home grown version of Formula Ford driving cars created solely from parts manufactured by the COMECON industry or created from scratch.Engines were limited to 1300cc displacement with limited tuning allowed, and tended to primarily be of Lada origins.

For this series we will be visiting circuits that fell within the eastern block, several tracks existed during this period - others have been build since the fall of communism.All should provide some fantastic races for this series.

Currently the season is planned to begin on the 24th of June! (date may change as we progress through the current season)

All races will consist of 2x 20 minutes + 1 lap. The 2nd race will feature a reversed grid.

Drivers must choose their vehicle and skin prior to joining the season in this thread - a list will be maintained in the next post.All of the following cars are available - note that the Estonia 21 will be an older version of the Mod (V1.0.3), this is because the current version - while more accurate to real life - is heavily under powered compared to the rest of the field:

Estonian design, very popular in the early 80's with several drivers recording success.Uses Lada 1300cc motor coupled with a 4 speed ZAZ gearbox.

Estonia 21:

Successor to the 20, possibly the first ground effects car in Eastern Europe - based on a Lotus 81. Also recorded a fair amount of success.Uses 1300cc Lada engine and a 5 speed ZAZ gearbox (the older mod version we're using still has the same 4 speed as the other cars )

Melkus MT77-2:

An East German design, the most basic - but also most successful - car from East Germany in the Friendship cup.Uses a Lada 1300cc engine with a 4 speed Wartburg 311 transmission.

MTX1-03b/c:

A Czech design - you all know them from the previous race Cars were sold all over Eastern Europe for competition.Uses Lada 1300cc Engine and unknown 4 speed gearbox.

MTX1-06:

Replacement for the 1-03 and based heavily on the experimental 1-04. Despite a lighter chassis and proper aerodynamic research, it did not have any real advantage over the competition.Uses Lada 1300cc engine and unknown 4 speed gearbox as with the MTX1-03.

RAF80:

Another Czech design, this also has limited ground effects and won the coveted 'most angular' award for soviet racecars in the early 80's Engine and gearbox not known - but 1300cc and 4 gears is what you get!

For the time being the Estonia 21 is not available as it's too slow to race safely. See the next post - sorted now! I'll be trying the older versions over the weekend to see if they fair better and can join the fun (It looks too good to be missed if we can run it )

Put me down for something that's not very popular but with a decent default setup please.

In order of pace:

MTX 1-03 (b or c) is pretty good but is snappy at low speeds - 2nd gear and below based on Bikernieki. Although I think the hairpin is intentionally low grip so that might explain it. I found the car fine at Brands and Riverside when testing.

The Estonia 20 is very 'pointy' as default without being too snappy, nice mid corner charateristics but sucks a bit on the high speed circuits/corners as I found at Riverside.

The RAF 80 is very stable with the default setup, although perhaps slightly too understeery at high speeds with the default setup for my tastes when racing real people (the AI suck so it's fine against them!).

Let me know which of the above suits your driving style best (you're best having a quick go to choose between the 1-03 and the 20) and I'll pick you a nice one!Also an older version of the Estonia 21 may still be an option, if the handling is similar to the current slow version then you might like that.. Watch this thread!

No, it's nothing to do with Dacia's - But rather that I remembered correctly and there is an older version of the Estonia 21 which has performance matching the rest of the grid!

It has the same engine and gearbox as the other cars now (So only 4 gears but you can actually get off the line!).I've run it at Brands and Riverside and it gets the same (combined) time as the Estonia 20. Only where the 20 is better on twisty circuits the 21 likes high speed courses.

I've put the car here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6pv084sa39qgvio/estonia_21%20V1.1.2.rar?dl=0You can safely install it without first deleting the version we've been using as it has a different name and physics - When picking it to test, check that you're selecting the 120Bhp version. That'll put you in the faster 4 speed variant. the 126Bhp car is the 5 speed but as you'll see it has a LOT less torque - this is why it's so slow I think.

I'm going to edit and re-upload the full package of cars with this included to ensure that any new joiners have the 'right' cars - that could take a while though due to the size of the file!

Fabri has already shown me the wip Custom skins are OK for this. I'll check my pack, but all the cars use the same driver file so I think what you'll find is that only 1 car actually has that included (they get installed into the drivers directory, not the car skins folder). It's that or I messed up when I changed the file to include the older version of the Estonia 21.

It's the same model file for all cars.But if you download the cars for the first time using the big pack (I had to reinstall the game recently so I had lost all he cars) you can't see the pilot. I don't know if that could give server problems or not.